Mookie4ever wrote:If anybody should be going on a rant it's Jays fans ranting about JP.

Since he's come here, as part of his 5 yr plan he has let get away Shannon Stewart, Felipe Lopez, David Bush, Orlando Hudson, Chris Carpenter and Brandon Lyon. He has traded for Hinske and Overbay but I can't think of a single trade that he has won except for maybe the Speier and Hillenbrand trades but then he managed to waste them as well. In 2005 when our payroll was $5M he was given an extra $210M to spend over the next 3 yrs and he has bungled it. The worst thing that he has done IMO is neglecting our minors. He has traded away prospects and generally ignored our minors. We had one of the best systems and now baseball america ranks our prospects as 25th in the majors.

Okay, a lot of misinformation there.

Trading away Shannon Stewart at the trade deadline in '03 was a good thing. It was a something for nothing kind of deal, and Stewart has regressed in a huge way over the last few years with many injury problems. His subtraction eventually led the way to openings at the OF positions for Reed Johnson and Alex Rios, both of whom have done a great job there, and are signed for cheap.

Trading away Felipe Lopez at the time wasn't a great deal, and it's true, we've never really gotten anything out of that, but JP did it under the assumption that Russ Adams wouldn't bust the way he has. Also, Felipe Lopez isn't exactly the kind of SS I'd want starting in Toronto. He's terrible offensively, and he's had to move to 2B because his defense wasn't up to par there.

I'd consider trading Dave Bush for Lyle Overbay to be one of his better deals so far. Bush has been a consistent underachiever with the Brewers, while Overbay put up a career year for us last year and he reamins one of our better offensive players.

How could trading Orlando Hudson be seen as a bad move at this point? He brought us the power bat we needed in 2006 in Troy Glaus (who's one of the best hitting 3B in the AL), and it opened up a spot at second base for Aaron Hill who has become one of the best defense 2B in the league, a cheaper and younger alternative.

Letting Chris Carpenter and Brandon Lyon (and heck, why not add Chad Gaudin on there) don't look good, but we gave those guys all the chances in the world to prove it at the ML level that they belonged there (specifically in the case of Chris Carpenter). With Chris, we would have had to sign the guy for a whole season while he was rehabbing, and based on his prior performance with the team, I don't fault JP for making the decision he did there. I didn't see anybody complaining about letting those 3 go when those moves happened, so you can't play armchair GM about something like that after the fact.

JP didn't trade for Hinske, that was Gord Ash.

And $210M over 3 years comes out to 70M a season, which is still well below the average payroll in Major League Baseball, and far below the Yankees/Red Sox's payroll. We're still not exactly playing with a full deck here.

And yes I agree, our minor league system isn't that good, but it seems to be producing major league players at a decent clip. Aaron Hill, Shaun Marcum, Casey Janssen, Adam Lind, Jesse Litsch, and Curtis Thigpen are all Ricciardi draft picks.

Mookie4ever wrote: In 2005 when our payroll was $5M he was given an extra $210M to spend over the next 3 yrs and he has bungled it.

And $210M over 3 years comes out to 70M a season, which is still well below the average payroll in Major League Baseball, and far below the Yankees/Red Sox's payroll. We're still not exactly playing with a full deck here.

$210 extra means $70m per season ON TOP OF what the franchise was already spending (Mookie obviously mistyped there- did he mean $50m or $?5m?)

Mookie4ever wrote:If anybody should be going on a rant it's Jays fans ranting about JP.

Since he's come here, as part of his 5 yr plan he has let get away Shannon Stewart, Felipe Lopez, David Bush, Orlando Hudson, Chris Carpenter and Brandon Lyon. He has traded for Hinske and Overbay but I can't think of a single trade that he has won except for maybe the Speier and Hillenbrand trades but then he managed to waste them as well. In 2005 when our payroll was $5M he was given an extra $210M to spend over the next 3 yrs and he has bungled it. The worst thing that he has done IMO is neglecting our minors. He has traded away prospects and generally ignored our minors. We had one of the best systems and now baseball america ranks our prospects as 25th in the majors.

Okay, a lot of misinformation there.

Trading away Shannon Stewart at the trade deadline in '03 was a good thing. It was a something for nothing kind of deal, and Stewart has regressed in a huge way over the last few years with many injury problems. His subtraction eventually led the way to openings at the OF positions for Reed Johnson and Alex Rios, both of whom have done a great job there, and are signed for cheap.

Trading away Felipe Lopez at the time wasn't a great deal, and it's true, we've never really gotten anything out of that, but JP did it under the assumption that Russ Adams wouldn't bust the way he has. Also, Felipe Lopez isn't exactly the kind of SS I'd want starting in Toronto. He's terrible offensively, and he's had to move to 2B because his defense wasn't up to par there.

I'd consider trading Dave Bush for Lyle Overbay to be one of his better deals so far. Bush has been a consistent underachiever with the Brewers, while Overbay put up a career year for us last year and he reamins one of our better offensive players.

How could trading Orlando Hudson be seen as a bad move at this point? He brought us the power bat we needed in 2006 in Troy Glaus (who's one of the best hitting 3B in the AL), and it opened up a spot at second base for Aaron Hill who has become one of the best defense 2B in the league, a cheaper and younger alternative.

Letting Chris Carpenter and Brandon Lyon (and heck, why not add Chad Gaudin on there) don't look good, but we gave those guys all the chances in the world to prove it at the ML level that they belonged there (specifically in the case of Chris Carpenter). With Chris, we would have had to sign the guy for a whole season while he was rehabbing, and based on his prior performance with the team, I don't fault JP for making the decision he did there. I didn't see anybody complaining about letting those 3 go when those moves happened, so you can't play armchair GM about something like that after the fact.

JP didn't trade for Hinske, that was Gord Ash.

And $210M over 3 years comes out to 70M a season, which is still well below the average payroll in Major League Baseball, and far below the Yankees/Red Sox's payroll. We're still not exactly playing with a full deck here.

And yes I agree, our minor league system isn't that good, but it seems to be producing major league players at a decent clip. Aaron Hill, Shaun Marcum, Casey Janssen, Adam Lind, Jesse Litsch, and Curtis Thigpen are all Ricciardi draft picks.

A lot of misinformation? What did I say that was wrong. You may disagree with my stated opinion but there is no misinformation in my post.

The Stewart deal was bad b/c Shannon had value back then even if he was going to become a FA. Shannon wasn't traded away to make room for Rios or Reed - JP wanted Bobby Kielty and I remember JP waxing philosophic about how great Kielty was going to be. Bust.

I don't know how you say that trading away Lopez was good. We gave up a guy who went on to become an All Star for Jason Arnold who retired last year without ever playing in the majors. If you are saying that the trade was made to make room for Russ Adams then what does that say about his ability to evaluate talent?

I did put Overbay in the plus column for JP but at the time that gave us huge logjam in the INF with Hillenbrand, Hinske not having anywhere to play.

The Hudson/Glaus trade is a wash IMO. Hill would be playing regardless. Remember we've been playing McDonald and Royce Clayton regularly in our INF. Also the subtraction of Hudson has really taken some of the personality away from the team. Hudson was a young leader that we seem to be lacking now. I still have this nagging suspicion that this trade had something to do with O-dog calling JP a pimp years ago. JP seriously has zero sense of humour and he sent Hudson to the minors for making that comment and never really liked him even though he was a leader and a fan favourite.

I take your point about playing armchair GM but I think that looking at this, even taking luck into account, nobody can say that JP is a great or even a good evaluator of talent.

FWIW the Jays opening day payroll was $82M which was 16/30 in the league.

The jury may still be out on JP but the dearth of talent in the farm system is very concerning. We have a few arms and only one bat that seems likely to make it to the majors. Our top arms even seem to be regressing or at least not developing as we thought they would. That's pretty poor.

Mookie4ever wrote: In 2005 when our payroll was $5M he was given an extra $210M to spend over the next 3 yrs and he has bungled it.

And $210M over 3 years comes out to 70M a season, which is still well below the average payroll in Major League Baseball, and far below the Yankees/Red Sox's payroll. We're still not exactly playing with a full deck here.

$210 extra means $70m per season ON TOP OF what the franchise was already spending (Mookie obviously mistyped there- did he mean $50m or $?5m?)

Yeah, mistype. $45M in 2005. It's not clear what the budget is anymore but we started 2007 at $81M and its going up for 2008.

Mookie4ever wrote: In 2005 when our payroll was $5M he was given an extra $210M to spend over the next 3 yrs and he has bungled it.

And $210M over 3 years comes out to 70M a season, which is still well below the average payroll in Major League Baseball, and far below the Yankees/Red Sox's payroll. We're still not exactly playing with a full deck here.

$210 extra means $70m per season ON TOP OF what the franchise was already spending (Mookie obviously mistyped there- did he mean $50m or $?5m?)

Mookie4ever wrote:If anybody should be going on a rant it's Jays fans ranting about JP.

Since he's come here, as part of his 5 yr plan he has let get away Shannon Stewart, Felipe Lopez, David Bush, Orlando Hudson, Chris Carpenter and Brandon Lyon. He has traded for Hinske and Overbay but I can't think of a single trade that he has won except for maybe the Speier and Hillenbrand trades but then he managed to waste them as well. In 2005 when our payroll was $5M he was given an extra $210M to spend over the next 3 yrs and he has bungled it. The worst thing that he has done IMO is neglecting our minors. He has traded away prospects and generally ignored our minors. We had one of the best systems and now baseball america ranks our prospects as 25th in the majors.

Okay, a lot of misinformation there.

Trading away Shannon Stewart at the trade deadline in '03 was a good thing. It was a something for nothing kind of deal, and Stewart has regressed in a huge way over the last few years with many injury problems. His subtraction eventually led the way to openings at the OF positions for Reed Johnson and Alex Rios, both of whom have done a great job there, and are signed for cheap.

Trading away Felipe Lopez at the time wasn't a great deal, and it's true, we've never really gotten anything out of that, but JP did it under the assumption that Russ Adams wouldn't bust the way he has. Also, Felipe Lopez isn't exactly the kind of SS I'd want starting in Toronto. He's terrible offensively, and he's had to move to 2B because his defense wasn't up to par there.

I'd consider trading Dave Bush for Lyle Overbay to be one of his better deals so far. Bush has been a consistent underachiever with the Brewers, while Overbay put up a career year for us last year and he reamins one of our better offensive players.

How could trading Orlando Hudson be seen as a bad move at this point? He brought us the power bat we needed in 2006 in Troy Glaus (who's one of the best hitting 3B in the AL), and it opened up a spot at second base for Aaron Hill who has become one of the best defense 2B in the league, a cheaper and younger alternative.

Letting Chris Carpenter and Brandon Lyon (and heck, why not add Chad Gaudin on there) don't look good, but we gave those guys all the chances in the world to prove it at the ML level that they belonged there (specifically in the case of Chris Carpenter). With Chris, we would have had to sign the guy for a whole season while he was rehabbing, and based on his prior performance with the team, I don't fault JP for making the decision he did there. I didn't see anybody complaining about letting those 3 go when those moves happened, so you can't play armchair GM about something like that after the fact.

JP didn't trade for Hinske, that was Gord Ash.

And $210M over 3 years comes out to 70M a season, which is still well below the average payroll in Major League Baseball, and far below the Yankees/Red Sox's payroll. We're still not exactly playing with a full deck here.

And yes I agree, our minor league system isn't that good, but it seems to be producing major league players at a decent clip. Aaron Hill, Shaun Marcum, Casey Janssen, Adam Lind, Jesse Litsch, and Curtis Thigpen are all Ricciardi draft picks.

A lot of misinformation? What did I say that was wrong. You may disagree with my stated opinion but there is no misinformation in my post.

A lot of those things you stated weren't bad moves at all, and many of them are criticisms that nobody made at the time. Also, as I said, Hinske wasn't traded for by JP, he was traded for by Ash.

The Stewart deal was bad b/c Shannon had value back then even if he was going to become a FA. Shannon wasn't traded away to make room for Rios or Reed - JP wanted Bobby Kielty and I remember JP waxing philosophic about how great Kielty was going to be. Bust.

We traded Shannon Stewart to get Kielty, who we turned into Ted Lilly. In what way is that bad?

I don't know how you say that trading away Lopez was good. We gave up a guy who went on to become an All Star for Jason Arnold who retired last year without ever playing in the majors. If you are saying that the trade was made to make room for Russ Adams then what does that say about his ability to evaluate talent?

I didn't say it was good. I said it isn't as bad as everybody says it is. Felipe Lopez was pretty good a few years ago, but he's dropped off in a major way, and he doesn't even play his old position anymore. He's definitely not the guy I would want as our future SS right now.

I did put Overbay in the plus column for JP but at the time that gave us huge logjam in the INF with Hillenbrand, Hinske not having anywhere to play.

We eventually turned Hillenbrand into Jeremy Accardo, and traded Hinske away for money.

The Hudson/Glaus trade is a wash IMO. Hill would be playing regardless. Remember we've been playing McDonald and Royce Clayton regularly in our INF. Also the subtraction of Hudson has really taken some of the personality away from the team. Hudson was a young leader that we seem to be lacking now. I still have this nagging suspicion that this trade had something to do with O-dog calling JP a pimp years ago. JP seriously has zero sense of humour and he sent Hudson to the minors for making that comment and never really liked him even though he was a leader and a fan favourite.

We traded Hudson to open up room for what we believed to be a good SS/2B combination in Russ Adams (who I might add was coming off a good year in the minors and a good September with Toronto) and Aaron Hill, and also to bring in a power bat...something we didn't have after Carlos Delgado's absence.

Also, I'm unconvinced JP traded a guy because he called him a pimp as a rookie 4 years before.

I take your point about playing armchair GM but I think that looking at this, even taking luck into account, nobody can say that JP is a great or even a good evaluator of talent. The jury may still be out on JP but the dearth of talent in the farm system is very concerning. We have a few arms and only one bat that seems likely to make it to the majors. Our top arms even seem to be regressing or at least not developing as we thought they would. That's pretty poor.[/

mweir145 wrote:Also, as I said, Hinske wasn't traded for by JP, he was traded for by Ash.

I'm not sure why you've said this twice, but that is wrong. JP was the guy who traded for Hinske. I believe it was the first trade he made as GM of the Blue Jays, one of many trades he made with Oakland in his first couple of years.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.P._Ricciardihttp://danjulien.atspace.com/ricciardi.htmThe trade itself was not necessarily bad, Koch flamed out shortly after that; but giving Hinske the huge 5-year contract after his rookie year (which they are still paying this year!) proved to be a gigantic mistake. As did basing several of their moves around Russ Adams being a cornerstone of the team. Saying they traded Hinske for money doesn't help b/c the money they got back was a drop in the bucket compared to what they're paying him to sit on Boston's bench.

mweir145 wrote:

FWIW the Jays opening day payroll was $82M which was 16/30 in the league.

Still below average, and in our division, it's likely not going to accomplish much unless you have a bit of luck.

I don't think the division has so much to do with it anymore; the Yankees and Boston both had down-years last year and the Jays were still out of the race by August. The Yankees are a virtual non-factor this year and the Jays are still in trouble b/c they're way behind Detroit and Cleveland. The Jays have also had a strong record head-to-head record against the Sox and Yankees most years, so it's not like playing those teams head-to-head is the problem. (The problem is really that the Jays don't beat weaker teams, whereas those other two teams usually feast on such opponents.)

Bottom line is Ricciardi was brought in with the guise of being an Oakland-style GM who would evaluate talent well and do "more with less". When he couldn't get the job done that way he asked for huge raises in the payroll, and still has gotten no closer. It is really hard to figure out what his 'official plan' is now, b/c the moves follow no consistent pattern. From 2002-2006, even with this being the wild card era, the Jays were never once in a playoff race in September. They are a .500 team again this year. This is basically the same kind of performance that deservedly got Gord Ash fired, only the Jays had a much better farm system under Ash, and Ash's performance was more understandable b/c the owners back then (Belgian Interbrew) were significantly less generous with the team, and probably didn't care whether the team survived or didn't. Whereas Rogers has been more than generous with Ricciardi, and he still hasn't performed. The more I write this, the more I think Paul Godfrey is a big part of the problem too, since he is usually JP's loudest supporter (he hired him as a no-name to basically be the golden boy/face of the franchise), and as long as he gives his unconditional support, Ricciardi and Gibbons will have insufficient motivation to do any better than they're doing.

You've got a diamond, You've got nine men You've got a hat and a bat, And that's not all..

mweir145 wrote:Also, as I said, Hinske wasn't traded for by JP, he was traded for by Ash.

I'm not sure why you've said this twice, but that is wrong. JP was the guy who traded for Hinske. I believe it was the first trade he made as GM of the Blue Jays, one of many trades he made with Oakland in his first couple of years.

Yikes, that's a major mistake you wouldn't think I would make. I don't know why I thought it was Gord Ash that traded for him. Stupid me...

The trade itself was not necessarily bad, Koch flamed out shortly after but giving Hinske the huge 5-year contract after his rookie year (which they are still paying this year!) proved to be a gigantic mistake. As did basing several of their moves around Russ Adams being a cornerstone of the team. Saying they traded Hinske for money doesn't help b/c the money they got back was a drop in the bucket compared to what they're paying him to sit on Boston's bench.

And they also gave a contract to Vernon Wells (who wasn't the rookie of the year of the 2 of them), and we're still paying him cheap right now because of it. So if you're going to give credit for that signing (because how can you sign Wells to a contract like that if you don't sign the rookie of the year to a similar deal), you can't exactly bash him for giving the contract to Hinske, which pretty much anybody would have done. And as for the Hinske deal that saved money...well he's having a terrible season for the Red Sox, and his replacement, Matt Stairs is having what appears to be almost like a career year at age 38.

I don't think the division has so much to do with it anymore; the Yankees and Boston both had down-years last year and the Jays were still out of the race by August. The Yankees are a virtual non-factor this year and the Jays are still in trouble b/c they're way behind Detroit and Cleveland. The Jays have also had a strong record head-to-head record against the Sox and Yankees most years, so it's not like playing those teams head-to-head is the problem. (The problem is really that the Jays don't beat weaker teams, whereas those other two teams usually feast on such opponents.) Bottom line is Ricciardi was brought in with the guise of being an Oakland-style GM who would evaluate talent well and do "more with less". When he couldn't get the job done that way he asked for huge raises in the payroll, and still has gotten no closer. It is really hard to figure out what his 'official plan' is now, b/c the moves follow no consistent pattern. From 2002-2006, even with this being the wild card era, the Jays were never once in a playoff race in September. They are a .500 team again this year. This is basically the same kind of performance that deservedly got Gord Ash fired, only the Jays had a much better farm system under Ash, and Ash's performance was more understandable b/c the owners back then (Belgian Interbrew) were significantly less generous with the team, and probably didn't care whether the team survived or didn't. Whereas Rogers has been more than generous with Ricciardi, and he still hasn't performed. The more I write this, the more I think Paul Godfrey is a big part of the problem too, since he is basically JP's biggest supporter (he hired him as a no-name to basically be the golden boy/face of the franchise), and as long as he gives his unconditional support, Ricciardi and Gibbons will have insufficient motivation to do any better than they're doing.

I don't know if you've noticed, but we're not competing in the AL West, a division where you can actually get by with smart management (with a low payroll). Over his 6 years here, Boston and New York have consistently had a higher payroll than us (and the willingness to spend money on almost anything to fix a problem), and that is the main reason, more than any other, why the Jays haven't been a playoff team. Yes, maybe the Jays would have been more successful with another GM, but the overwhelming likelihood of it is...they probably wouldn't have, not with the level of competition they are facing. JP hasn't done as poor a job as many make it seem he has, but he's not exactly doing that great either, and for that reason, it wouldn't hurt me in the slightest to see him go. Personally, I thought Ricciardi built a very good team this season that had a chance to make the playoffs (of course, the chance was still relatively slim, like it is any other season), and I guess we'll finally have a chance to see it in the 2nd half.